Bridie Ryan Letter re N'hamp Soccer ClubBridie Ryan
191 Bridge Road
Florence, MA 01062
November 4, 2017
Northampton City Council
City Hall Room 16
210 Main Street
Northampton, MA 01060
To the Northampton City Council Members,
L, NOV - 9 2017
I
CITY CLERKS OFFICE
NORTHAMPTON, MA 01060
I thought it was important to share with the Northampton City Council the
experience a group of local 11 & 12 yr. old girls had with the Northampton Soccer
Club because it relates to how the city is spending our Community Preservation Act
Tax money. This Fall NSC turned away a group of local girls, from their team
rosters, but kept kids from other towns and cities. 1 presented to NSC
administrators a way all the children could play, including the kids from other
regions, but the NSC club still chose to kick out these local girls., I was surprised
because they practice and play games 6 days a week on our newly constructed
Florence Soccer fields, that are funded by the Community Preservation Act taxes. I
thought NSC was a city program, they are described on our Recreation Department
web site and in their flyer as one, but I learned from our Recreation Director, they
are not. They pay a fee to rent our fields, like any league can, but have no official ties
to the city. The majority of the cost of the fields' maintenance, irrigation, sports
equipment, and facility upkeep are provided by Northampton's DPW. Northampton
Recreation Department has a policy leagues using city fields have to include 50%
city residents (they are working to increase it to 75% per league). I think it should
be more and per team. If 100% of Northampton city homeowners have to pay the
Community Preservation Act Surcharge, why were only 50% of the of the
Northampton kids required to be in the leagues utilizing those funds?
Those athletic fields should be for the enjoyment of the residents of the city, but
instead they are being rented to a regional league that demonstrated no priority to
include local kids. It doesn't seem right NSC is allowed to run their program off of
the hard work of Northampton city families, and monopolize those fields. I think it is
really important children feel their community is willing to include and invest in
them, and we did not do a good job of sending that message to this group of girls this
Fall.
If you have any questions or would like to review my email correspondence with the
NSC administrators please feel free to ask
Sincerely,
Bridie Ryan
413-588-1635